THIS insect is celebrated for the beauty of the colour which it yields, when properly prepared. It is a native of South America, and is peculiarly cultivated in the country of Mexico, where it feeds on the plants called cactus cochenillifer, and cactus opuntia. The female Cochineal insect, in its fullgrown, pregnant, or torpid state, swells or grows to such a size, in proportion to that of its first, or creeping state, that the legs, antennæ, and proboscis are so small, with

respect to the rest of the animal, as hardly to be discovered except by a good eye, or by the assistance of a glass; so that on a general view it bears as great a resemblance to a seed or berry as to an animal. This was the cause of that difference in opinion, which long subsisted between several authors; some maintaining that Cochineal was a berry, while others contended that it was an insect. We must also here advert to another error, viz. that the cochineal was a species of coccinella or lady-bird. This seems to have taken its rise from specimens of the coccinella cacti of Linnæus, being sometimes accidentally intermixed with the Cochineal in gathering and drying.

When the female Cochineal insect is arrived at its full size, it fixes itself to the surface of the leaf, and envelops itself in a white cottony matter, which it is supposed to spin or draw through its proboscis in a continued double filament, it being observed that two filaments are frequently seen proceeding from the tip of the proboscis in the full-grown insects.

The male is a small and rather slender

fly, about the size of a flea, with jointed antennæ and large white wings in proportion to the body, which is of a red colour, with two long filaments proceeding from the tail. It is an active and lively animal, and is dispersed in small numbers among the females, in the proportion (according to Mr. Ellis, in the Philosophical Transactions), of about one male to a hundred and fifty, or even two hundred females. When the female insect has discharged all its eggs, it becomes a mere husk, and dies; so that great care is taken to kill the insects before that time, to prevent the young from escaping, and thus disappointing the proprietor of the beautiful colour. The insects when picked or brushed off the plants, are said to be first killed either by the fumes of heated vinegar, or by smoke, and then dried, in which state they are imported into Europe: and it is said, that the Spanish government is annually more enriched by the profit of the Cochineal trade, than by the produce of all its gold

mines.

It may perhaps be almost unnecessary to add, that exclusive of the general, or large

scale, in which Cochineal is used by the dyers, the fine colour, so much esteemed in painting, and known by the name of carmine, is no other than a preparation from the same substance, and is unquestionably the most beautiful of all the pictorial reds. It is also used, when properly mixed, with hair powder, powdered talc, and in that cosmetic, so much used by the ladies, and properly known by the French term, rouge. -GALLERY OF NATURE AND ART.

CUCKOO-SPIT.

THE Cuckoo-Spit insect is so named from the circumstance of its producing, during its immature state, the white froth so common on various plants in the summer season, and popularly known by the name of Cuckoo-spittle. During this, its immature state, the animal continues to suck with its proboscis the juice of the plant on which it resides, discharging it at intervals from the hind part of its body, in the form of very minute glutinous bubbles, and by con

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tinuing this operation, completely covers itself under a large mass of white froth. When arrived at its full growth, it measures about the fifth of an inch in length, and is of a beautiful pale green colour; it now casts its skin, and appears in its perfect state, when the wings (of which the rudiments only were apparent before) are very conspicuous: the whole insect is now of a pale brown colour, with a pair of pale or whitish bands across the wings. In this state it is often called by the name of the frog-hopper, from a fancied resemblance to the shape of that animal in miniature. These insects breed in the month of September, and deposit their eggs towards the beginning of October, which, however, do not hatch till the following spring.

DR. SHAW.

CULEX. THE GNAT.

THESE insects too well known by the several punctures they inflict, and the itchings from thence arising, afford a most inte